A University of Alberta professor is co-leading a new international vaccine safety network to examine why some people who received a COVID-19 vaccine experienced very rare adverse events associated with the vaccine.
The International Network of Special Immunization Services (INSIS), based at the U of A, is a consortium of academic medical centres around the world coming together to study very rare adverse events after vaccination. An adverse reaction is considered very rare when it affects less than .001 per cent of the population.
"The bar for safety with vaccines is very high because we're giving them to healthy people to prevent them from getting sick," says U of A pediatric infectious disease professor Karina Top, who alongside Robert T. Chen, scientific director of the Brighton Collaboration — a leading non-profit vaccine safety organization — is co-leading INSIS. "We don't want these events to occur, and we want to understand why, so we can prevent them in the future."
INSIS is receiving up to US$15.3 million over four years from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to study why these very rare adverse events happen and who is most at risk. The network aims to help manufacturers develop new vaccines that will be even safer.
